Remote Monitoring Power One Inverter

[oldsalty]

Hi, hope somebody can help me with this.

Sons house 2 doors away is rented out and has Power One inverter with 13 panels. No wi-fi in the house, no landline in the house (tenants do have a HUGE satellite dish talking to their television companies in Poland) - so can't do 'in house (powerline)' monitoring, as it were. People next door not likely to let me run cat5/USB cable under their eaves between the sons and my own house - even if a USB cable up to 15 metres would still work.

If I use RS485 to USB converter at the inverter, then use something like a TP-LINK USB range extender at the end of the USB coverter cable usually only 1 meter, will I be able to talk directly to the inverter over a wireless link from my laptop to the USB range extender and into the inverter, using the Aurora software, or do I need some additional 'data communication' bits in between.

Additionally, have been looking but failed to find RS485 or RJ45 cables that I can plug directly in the inverter, to connect the converter to it, so is the only option to hard wire the converter to the terminal block in the inverter.

Have got the Aurora Communication Software and manuals but they only deal with 'in the same house (powerline?)' monitoring setups without using wireless to talk to the inverter. Have chatted to them a couple of times but they insist they only deal with commercial wireless monitoring and data logger, alone, costs over six hundred quid so not sensible for domestic use. Didn't bother asking how much (including running costs) the GSM modem they use to talk to their arrays costs!

Told the boy 'he should have bought the house next door'! but will be very grateful for any help.

(For info, I am on the Forum as a Part P, Edn 17 installer cos I did the courses a few years ago to be able to legally do my own garage conversion electrics, as retired person, but I do not consider myself to be an 'electrician'.)

 

[SibertSolar]

Fit a GSM enabled Smart meter in series with the existing generation meter? Wouldnt cost more than about £170 including annual data/portal fee, plus labour to have it fitted....

A more comprehensive, and expensive, option would be an Intellymodem unit.

 

[SibertSolar]

PS: are you/your son simply interested in remotely monitoring the kWh generation? Or do you particularly need to interrogate the inverter?

 

[oldsalty]

Fit a GSM enabled Smart meter in series with the existing generation meter? Wouldnt cost more than about £170 including annual data/portal fee, plus labour to have it fitted....

A more comprehensive, and expensive, option would be an Intellymodem unit.

Thanks, I'll follow up on that.

 

[oldsalty]

PS: are you/your son simply interested in remotely monitoring the kWh generation? Or do you particularly need to interrogate the inverter?

Primary aim is merely to confirm that the panels are working. Currently, with our own array it is very simple, with Solar Edge to log on and confirm everything is OK. With a tenanted property without monitoring it could be months before discovering that there is something going on with the array.

You must also never forget, for us retired people. the social aspects of when there is nothing on the telly we can log on to the portal and watch the numbers and bar charts and number of trees we've saved, not to mention the number of light bulbs we are not having to burn!

 

[whinmoor]

How do you check the generation meter to report the reading every three months? Is it in an accessible location or do you have permission to enter from the tenants?

 

[oldsalty]

How do you check the generation meter to report the reading every three months? Is it in an accessible location or do you have permission to enter from the tenants?

Good question. We had both our installations done in early November last so we have not yet completed the FiT registration process. No real problem anticipated getting in once every three months for meter reading, or even asking the tenant to let us know what it is.

That it is working properly however, being checked only once in three months, is another entirely different problem, in the absence of the capability to remotely monitor it.

 

[whinmoor]

It's also in their interests it's working correctly otherwise they won't benefit from free leccy. They should co-operate.

 

[Sunshine777]

Pretty sure the TP Link product you mention is to provide a wifi connection to a laptop via a USB connection - it needs to be installed in a PC in order to host the drivers and control SW.

Wireless USB or RS 485 links are not cheap or common place.

If you're the adventurous sort you could run the curtronics Aurora monitoring SW on something like the pogoplug running Linux and then use a wifi adapter or 3G dongle to monitor it remotely.

 

[Worcester]

We had both our installations done in early November last so we have not yet completed the FiT registration process. No real problem anticipated getting in once every three months for meter reading, or even asking the tenant to let us know what it is.

Hope you got the actual FIT application in to your FIT provider before the end of December, else you've lost about 3.5% per annum by not being eligible for the inflation update this April.